


A Blind Bet

by ActualHurry



Series: A Drifter's Gambit: Unabridged [4]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Lore Compliant, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 11:09:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16345580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ActualHurry/pseuds/ActualHurry
Summary: The Renegade's gone missing. The Drifter's plans continue on.(Set during "The Long Con".)





	A Blind Bet

**Author's Note:**

> A bit different than the usual, only because I've reached the point where Shin lets Shaxx take over. So now we're free of pre-existing lore! Shin & Drifter's tale needs to be continued in future lore installments for this series to keep going, or it'll stay completed like this for the rest of forever (but I'll keep writing pieces that don't rely on lore pieces, haha). Thank you, anyone who's kept up with it with me! I didn't ever intend on writing this much for Destiny, but here we are.
> 
> Spoilers for the Malfeasance quest line at the end. :)

The Dreaming City was enormous. Pretty too, but the Drifter wasn’t interested in that. Some hopeful fireteam that’d been running circles around other Guardians in Gambit had slipped him a hint in return for a chance at some pulled strings next match – _maybe it would be good for Gambit._ And hell, wasn’t it. Took some clearing, and without his pal and the borrowed Redjacks, it was a lengthy process. Drifter didn’t do much of the clearing himself, of course; he had Primevals for a reason, didn’t he? And they were hungry things. So he let them eat.

“Gonna be a good time,” Drifter drawled aloud, his Ghost flitting here and there, eye narrow with interest. He leaned his shoulder against a great pillar inside of the massive cathedral. “You know how they get about the gimmicky stuff. We got portals, open space to trip and fall into. They’re gonna love it.”

Used to be he’d chat to the Renegade at times like this. Prop his feet up and shoot the shit. Well, not anymore. The guy must’ve found greener pastures or something, ‘cuz Drifter hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him in a good while. Usually, ‘a good while’ wasn’t nothing to a Risen who’d been alive so long. But the Renegade had hung around near constantly since they’d met.

Too bad. He didn’t exactly _care_ about it. He had plenty of Guardians clambering to be his best friends, join his crew. So it wasn’t like Renegade was all he had, or anything. Please, he had _everything_ he needed.

Drifter wasn’t the sentimental type, not really. But maybe he’d grown accustomed to company outside of his quiet Ghost. Not that it mattered. He could talk enough for the both of them, and the roars of his Primevals clearing the land of pesky Hive and Scorn was a nice backdrop. Really pleasant.

“Whew. Could probably get this place opened up in, what, a couple days? Just gotta drop the bank, eh... thereabouts.” He waved vaguely off at the center entrance outside the cathedral. “These ledges’re gonna be the bane of a lotta players, though.” It could’ve been apologetic, if not for his toothy grin.

His Ghost’s eye got real wide as it laughed along with him.

 

In the EDZ, the Drifter spent a few days yanking parts out of a downed Fallen skiff and watching his own back. Just like old times.

 

On Nessus, the Drifter stole some Cabal tech and rigged together some monstrosity of an auto-turret. He considered dropping it on the field at some point in the middle of a Gambit match, asked aloud to nobody in particular if he should, then did it anyway. The Guardians took it out pretty quickly, just like he knew they would, but watched with some aimless spite as they had to chain-revive each other in the process.

 

“What?” he asked his Ghost as they settled into some dodgy bar in the City. “Don’t gimme that. I’m relaxing, I’ve earned it.” Except that he kept glancing around for that old, stupid model of helmet that’d become such a constant. His Ghost rolled its one eye.

 

Drifter shot some of Shaxx’s Redjacks and felt better.

 

Alright. If the Renegade wanted to find him, he knew where the hell he was. If not out in the field, scavenging up shit to make his ship stay together, he was in his alley waiting to dole out gifts and rewards to dedicated Gambit players. He was the most generous person around out here, really. Vanguard should be thanking him for all the extra foot traffic he was giving this wing of the City wall.

At sundown, Drifter ducked under the gate where he kept all his things, pulling it down so nobody could get in and steal anything. Anyone dumb enough to gank his shit was playing with natural selection anyway. He turned around, about to walk away, when he nearly ran right into a chestpiece of very heavy armor.

“You are the Drifter,” Shaxx rumbled, holding his ground.

Drifter didn’t budge, choosing to stay within a scant few inches of the man. Though he mourned the fact that he’d dropped his toothpick out of surprise. A Titan that big shouldn’t walk so quiet, like a damn cat with padded feet. Drifter liked cats okay enough. “Uh-huh. You’re the Crucible guy. Never let anybody forget it, either.”

“How could they?” Shaxx asked, unbothered. He crossed his arms. Drifter subtly checked out the armor lining his biceps, then wondered if his skull would survive the impact of an elbow drop. Probably not. He’d died worse before. “There are things to destroy past the Wall that make for better target practice than my Redjacks.”

“Oh, you’re tellin’ me.” Drifter still didn’t understand how those scrap metal things got any work done clearing the Gambit fields. He suspected Renegade might’ve had something to do with it. “They _suck_.”

“They serve a purpose.” Shaxx put a hand on Drifter’s shoulder, uncomfortably close to his neck, and held there. Tight. “As do you.”

“Well, if that doesn’t just give me the willies. What are you, speaking for the Traveler now?” Drifter said dryly. “Wine and dine a man first.” He tried and failed to shake Shaxx’s grip. Running his tongue over his teeth, he gave in. “Alright, listen. I won’t blow up anymore of your walkin’ bits of junkyard, how’s that?” When no immediate answer was given, Drifter held out a pinky. “I _promise_.”

Shaxx looked down at the extended pinky and cocked his head to the side, just so, but it got the man’s hand off of Drifter’s shoulder, even if he didn’t reach out to link pinkies. Shame. “Your word had better hold true. Your presence isn’t unknown to any of us here. Whatever game you’re playing –”

“Gambit.”

“– is a dangerous one.”

Drifter stared at him a long time, though he had to lift up his chin a decent amount to do it. “Yeah, you’re preachin’ to the choir, friend. Don’t worry about it none.”

After a long time, where Drifter wasn’t sure if he was about to get launched off the side of the Wall a good thirty feet away or not, Shaxx stepped away. It gave him some space to walk past and he took his chance to leave, walking away with a lax stroll that said nothing about how much attention he was really paying. Drifter glanced back at Shaxx once he was out of grabbing distance, looking him up and down.

“Was told by somebody borrowin’ things from you that my _game_ was exactly what the City needed to stay saved,” Drifter said, smiling now. “If all you folk in this City didn’t think the same damn thing, I wouldn’t still be here.”

Yeah, he thought, walking off. He had their fucking number.

 

One Guardian in particular was good at slaying gods. Good at grocery lists. Good at Gambit, which mattered most – _real_ good. So Drifter asked a favor of them, which he didn’t do often. Usually, people cashed favors in with him. Not the other way around.

But he’d been wondering something a while now. Had an inkling, but wasn’t sure enough to really believe. He was all about proof, right? Liked to get his hands on things to make certain. And for this little problem, he needed to be _completely_ certain.

So he sent the Guardian off to The Dreaming City to kill a few Taken, find a way into the Ascendant Realm, and track down the man of the hour. Callum. Maybe Drifter wasn’t overly sympathetic with the Shadows of Yor – sure as hell not as dedicated – but he got the gist of what they were about, and hell if it wasn’t closer to his own line of thinking than it was the Vanguards. Shoddy excuse for Lightbearers, if you asked him. Why govern a bunch of mostly immortal powerhouses when it was a dog eat dog world out past their precious Wall?

He was listening in on the Guardian and their fireteam when they came up on what _used_ to be a body.

“Hell,” he grumbled while muted from the comms, and was even a touch rueful about it.

“Drifter, if I’m reading this right… your friend Callum was killed by… another Guardian,” said the Guardian’s Ghost. Guardian themselves was a quiet one, but their Ghost sure could talk.

“Nothin’ kills you quicker,” Drifter remarked with some reticence, feeling a little more like that hunch of his might be right. It’d been a long time since he hadn’t listened to his gut feeling, or even doubted it in the first place.

“I’m pulling final audio from his Ghost. Hang on.”

Drifter settled back to listen to the show, something churning in his chest. He listened as an all-too-familiar gravel pitch declared Callum’s death, that churning feeling sicker and colder with every second. He listened to Callum die, the incineration of a physical form and whatever Light might have remained. He tapped fingers in an off-beat rhythm on his worktable, and thought about knives and between which ribs a blade could fit best.

“I think you have some explaining to do,” said that damn Ghost.

“Gimme a minute, would ya?” he snapped. “I’m thinkin’.”

“You owe us a little more than Glimmer for this.”

Fuck, was he glad his Ghost couldn’t make a sound. “Shut up and bring me everything you found at that grave. You’ll get paid.”

Weird. Weird, how life ended up. He wasn’t even really that angry. Impressed. Frustrated that he was impressed. Imagine getting into bed with someone who wanted you dead. He didn’t have to. Neither did the Renegade.

Made a lot make sense, in hindsight. Maybe he was a little pissed off he hadn’t taken advantage of the situation and taken a shot sooner. Sure, he would’ve died for it, but hey. Opportunist.

As the comms went silent and he straightened up, Drifter laughed a ragged, long laugh. Thousands of years, and nobody had ever gotten one over on him like this. Thousands! “Shin fuckin’ Malphur,” he muttered, his Ghost’s eye trained on him, tracking his every little movement like it couldn’t wait to see the next twist. Yeah, neither could he. “The Man with the Golden Gun. Really got me there. Really. Fuckin’. _Had_ me.”

Because the Drifter’s game was always Gambit. But the Renegade had been playing a game all along too. Running circles around him. Well. If that was how it was gonna be –

“Game on,” Drifter growled.

He waited for his crew.


End file.
